


virago

by CharisBlack (RionaHGoch)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1970s, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Female Friendship, First War with Voldemort, Friends to Enemies, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Memories, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Slow Build, Unreliable Narrator, eulogy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22275772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RionaHGoch/pseuds/CharisBlack
Summary: viragonoun1. a woman of great stature, strength, and courage2. a heroine, a female warrior, a woman of exemplary qualities3. a picture of Lily Evans by multiple strokesNote: I’m seeking for co-creators to this one. Send me a PM if it might interest you.
Relationships: Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape, Mary Macdonald & Marlene McKinnon & Dorcas Meadowes & Lily Evans Potter, Pandora Lovegood/Xenophilius Lovegood, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Marlene McKinnon
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. toska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **toska**  
>  _noun_  
>  1\. a dull ache of the soul for nothing and everything all at once  
> 2\. a sick pining, mental throes, yearning  
> 3\. desire of somebody for something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Gymnopédies](https://youtu.be/_fuIMye31Gw) by Erik Satie

Severus Snape couldn’t know for certain when was the first time he saw the red-haired girl that he’d one day call friend, yet by his eighth birthday, he had already made her his acquaintance. One of the earliest memories he had of her was from before he had the nerve to actually talk to her. She was alone, her nasty sister nowhere to be seen, playing in the community garden just outside Pillmore Lane. She wore a yellow dress, just like the flowers in her hair. It had taken him a while to notice that the flowers woven in her hair were not actual gerberas as he had first thought, but common daisies that she had changed the colour. 

Lily was her name and everything about her reminded him of the spring. Her eyes were the colour of lush grass after the rain, her hair the colour of chestnuts and poppies. Her laughter was the chirping of a robin and she was curious like newborn pups. She was kind like the breeze that ruffled treetops and magical like the first cusp of life that appear just as the snow melts. Cokeworth was a grey mass to which spring could rarely arrive, but one look at her and one might believe to be in the most wondrous form of woodland.

Their friendship had flourished in that same garden, forgotten by working adults in order to pay their bills. Sometimes, her shrew of a sister would come as well, those were dreary affairs that were soon ended by her shrieks. When they were alone, Severus might tell Lily about their kind as one might tell a child bedtime stories of fairytales. She was full of questions that only he could answer and loved to do it, in the most detailed manner. He preened under her attention as she flourished under his directions. 

She’d bring every book on magic he could find inside the dusty old house he was raised in, while she would lend him her favourite tales of fiction, be that _Gulliver’s Travels_ , _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_ , _Frankstein_ or _Oliver Twist._

* * *

The first gift he received from her had been a leather cover journal, for his eighth birthday. Winter holidays were just over, so a profound melancholy had overtaken them, for they would only have the weekends to meet. She had drawn with pastels an easter lily on the last page of the notebook, in a clumsy attempt of a botanical illustration. It had been a cold day, that day. 

“You can write all your ideas on it.” She had said, sitting on a swing and pushing the thin layer of snow around. “So, when you become a famous wizard and you publish on international papers, you’ll remember to dedicate them to your dearest friend and biggest supporter, Lily Evans.” 

“We are friends, then?” He had asked. 

“Of course, Sev. Best friends.”

Three weeks later, when her own birthday had come, he had nicked an old copy _The Language of the Flowers_ his mother kept in the attic as his gift to her - an iris he had nicked from a florist shop pressed inside the pages. It was the sort of thing that Lily loved. Rhymes and cryptology, cloudy days and sweet scents, pastel colours and satin ribbons. She was a self-assumed romantic, with a thing for impressionism and the Pre-Raphaelites. It had been her who introduced Chopin and Saint-Saëns to him, but of all the artists she had shown him, Satie had been the one who stuck with him through later periods of life. Even after she left, he would put vinyl on and let it play, a the time did nothing to wash his melancholia away. 

They were still first-years when they had their first big fight. It was around May, and the exams were near enough that they would latter blame their words on the stress caused by them, in order to avoid analysing their disagreement further. They would only patch their friendship up back at home when no prying eyes were around to watch them. 

* * *

“Why didn’t you come yesterday?” He had asked, as they walked from their first class in the morning, Transfiguration, to Potions. 

“Viola got news from home, you see, her bunny died and she was so sad, Sev!” She had said, with pity. “Dorcas - you remember her? I introduced you last week - she knows where the kitchens are. So, she took us, girls, to have a mug of hot chocolate. Viola was able to forget for a while, but I don’t know really how she is going to be this next week.” 

“So, you didn’t think to, I don’t know, warn me before going to the kitchens?”

“Dorcas didn’t really say where we were going or what we were going to do. I thought it would be quick, sorry Sev.”

“Really? You blew your best friend off for a bunch of girls you weren’t talking to until last month? That’s nice, Lily.”

“Sev! That’s unfair, you know I’ve been trying to make friends this year. And I finally did it. What’s so wrong with that? It’s not as if you can’t do your Charms homework alone, you know it just as much as I do.” 

“The wrong is that you forgot about me! You are so selfish, Lily that you can’t see it!” 

“I’m selfish? You want to monopolise me, Severus. You don’t greet Dorcas, you don’t even talk to any of my friends! I thought it was ‘cuz you are shy, but you have made friends with those chauvinistic prats of your house alright! You are just self-centred.”

“I suppose that muggle-born sobby bunny less girl and the soulless harpy are better friends than a self-centred me, then.”

“Of course no, Sev. You’ll always have me.”

“Well, I don’t need you, Lily!”

“Fine, guess what? I don’t need you either. Goodbye!” 

* * *

That had been the first of the many fights they would have through the years. Sometimes they would last minutes, others hours, once in a while, they had one that lasted days or weeks. They only had three that lasted months. But they only had one that lasted years, and that never had been one to have an end. 

_But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?_

The night after that one he had walked back to his common room alone, way past the curfew. He couldn’t really reconcile the words Lily had spoken with the memories he had of her. In his mind, the part capable of rational thought argued that Lily was really a muggle-born, and that if he wanted to succeed in this world he would have to recognise her supposedly inferiority. Severus didn’t really believe in the discourse adopted by the ruling class - but he had come to understand the necessity to spout it: he wasn’t like Potter or Black, with their families with money and influence on their own, he hadn’t the luxury to go around denying the discourse of those that would promote him. Lily was simple in that area. She saw everything in black and white as if right and wrong could be easily found in real life. That wasn’t true, the world was way more grey than most Gryffindors could understand, and thousands of reasons lead to a number of much smaller actions. 

Severus did hate the absolute conviction a quarter of the school seemed to have, all of them dressed in red and gold. They were brash in their judgment of morality and Lily was not exempt of that. 

The next days, he would allow the idea of talking to her once again swirl around his mind, yet he never did it. Her words were engraved in his mind. Sometimes, he would catch a glance of her red hair, and remember the words she had spoken to him. He would remember the way her indigo dressing gown contrasted with her hair that night, the contempt in the eyes he had held so dear for over seven years. 

_You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine._

* * *

One of the last times he saw her was after their N.E.W.T.s. Almost everyone in their year sat by the Great Lake, enjoying a rare sunny day in what was beginning to prove to be a rather cloudy Summer. Soon they would graduate, and then they would be separated by war. Lucius had already sent him a letter, and there would be a gathering at the beginning of July, in which he hoped to introduce Severus to some connections and their lord. 

Severus wrote in his journal - not the one gifted to him by Lily, many years ago, that one laid forgotten at the bottom of his trunk - but in a magical one, capable of hiding its writings if one hadn’t received permission to read it. He was surrounded by his connections, Mulciber, Selwyn and Black. Mulciber was jinxing some birds in the tree they were under, while Selwyn cursed a bracelet Severus had never seen before. Black read a book, the kind that would belong to the Restricted Section if he had not brought it back from home. The Blacks had a truly impressive collection. 

Suddenly, he noticed Lily. She was quite far away, in the cobstone beach, surrounded by friends. Her girls around her, their feet unbothered by the bitterly cold water they were sunk in. Lily herself had a head on her lap, of none other than James Potter. His friends were also there, Black and Lupin duelling against each other while Pettigrew talked effusively to a girl. 

Lily was quite fashionable, despite her muggle clothes. A nice teal skirt covered her knees paired with a raisin coloured blouse. Potter raised his wand to her hair and a crown of purple pansies graced her hair, making her laugh. 

Flowers. Flowers used to be a thing for them. Not anymore, nobody could contain the breath of springtime that was Lily Evans. They were dating for many months while now, he knew, but the sight never ceased to bring fury to his mind. Potter was still an arrogant, self-important, ridiculous and violent swine, but she refused to see it now, blinded by affection in a way that she never allowed herself to be with Severus. Her life would be dragged down by that wretched man. 

If it hadn’t been for James Potter, he’d still have Lily by his side. 

She bent down to kiss him, and Severus decided to walk away. Soon, all would be past. 

* * *

The last time he had seen her had been different. The Order had organised a skirmish in Avery Hall, to release some muggles they kept at the dungeons. He had glanced briefly at her, while she fought Corban Yaxley. She was bleeding around her torso, but that didn’t seem to stop her from blinding him with a pink eye and blasting him away. Her hair was shorter and she moved swiftly, dancing in battle with another woman, a bit older, that if he could remember was the newly married Auror Alice Longbottom.

Severus nearly shouted for her when the Cruciatus Curse was thrown in her direction, but Longbottom got to her first, pushing her out of the way. Soon, his attention was redirected to Fabian Prewett, and he engaged in a duel with him. 

He never saw her again after that day. 


	2. meliorism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **meliorism**  
>  _noun_  
>  1\. the belief that the world can be made better by human effort.  
> 2\. progress is a real concept leading to an improvement of the world.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack: [Experience](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VONMkKkdf4) by Ludovico Einaudi

Lily Evans was a pretty girl, that was the first impression Dorcas Meadowes had of her. She seemed nice enough on the welcoming feast, a curious thing eager to make friends, yet still hung up on her Slytherin friend. The half-blood witch had already forgotten about her roommates in the morning, not one to usually pay attention to all the small talk they had engaged in the evening before. 

She had first taken notice of the girl in Potions, when they were paired together. The book Lily had opened had several notes scribbled on the margin, in a dandy handwriting that couldn’t be anyone’s else but hers. The girl smiled sheepishly at her inquisitive eyes, fishing out a ballpoint pen of her parcel, like the one her father preferred to use.

“My friend, Severus, had this class yesterday. He talked my ears off. The Cure for Boils – reckon it’ll be useful when we reach puberty.”

The first class they had was all theoretical, but nonetheless, her knowledge was impressive. As she explained, maybe most of it could be attributed to this friend of hers, but the other much doubted that someone could have such a shrewd perspective without the savviness of the mind.

Lily Evans was an impressive student. Dorcas wasn’t one much for talking, but she enjoyed the effort she had to make to compete with the other witch. They would do their essays together, but hardly ever share their views before completing an essay. Their friendship wasn’t great, not one that demanded honourable feats of loyalty like the one she had with Snape, for mostly Dorcas didn’t feel much more comfortable with the many arms of friendship the muggle-born offered her.

Dorcas lived for ideals, for great accomplishments to pursue and she dedicated little of her time to think of the support that those journeys required. She knew the world had never been fair to her muggle-born father or her half-blood uneducated mother. She knew the war would sown its own seeds of destruction - yet she had to believe that she would be able, one day, to bring change into wizardkind, for the other option was to perish.

It took her two years to notice that she was not alone in her way of thinking.

* * *

It had happened in the Hogwarts Express at the beginning of their third year. Her mother had just given her three sickles, with the tearful expression that spoke that there wouldn't be more money on the way for that term. “For Hogsmeade.” She had said. 

The year had been the worst for her family since she could remember. The Ministry was not employing many muggle-borns for awhile now, and when her father had been fired back in February, he hadn’t managed to get a job in the Muggle World either - the market wasn’t fair to black men that had only a primary education degree to show. Her mother was even worse: her parents didn’t have the means to send her and her brother both to Hogwarts, so at the end, they had to choose their son, who was most likely to earn a position in the ministry than a young witch that had grown around the stalls of Carkitt Market. Poor uncle Bernard, who had been found hanged at home when she was a kid, while her mother worked another long shift in The White Wyvern. Her job as a barmaid and her uncle’s savings had been what sustained her family for many months now, and yet each day the money became scarcer in their household, and Knockturn Alley became a more dangerous workplace.

While she fretted over the future of her family, her cabin door slid open to reveal the figure of a lonely redhead, her eyes pink and brimmed with tears. “Sorry, I thought this was empty.”

“Yeah, it’s not. You can leave and shut the door.” She spoke grumbly. Why was Lily Evans crying? She was smart, pretty, and generally liked - even by Slytherins. Dorcas had seen the girl’s parents, they were perfect middle class, perfect loving, non-magical, yet nonetheless special. 

“You are crying,” Lily noted, shutting the door behind herself. Dorcas brought her hands to her eyes, she hadn’t even noticed she was crying. 

“Well, so are you. I prefer to cry alone.” Dorcas pointed out.

“You know what usually helps me feel better? To help others.” Lily said, sitting by her side and taking her hands into hers. Dorcas wanted to push her away. She didn’t like the weakness of that soft person trying to squash her feelings in a pity party. Lily was nice, but she could be quite self-centered.

“Evans, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to make you feel better. Just forget that you saw me and I will forget you.” She said it in the harshest way she could, while she tried to take her hands back to herself - Lily had iron fists, though. 

“You better known the Memory Charm then, Meadowes, because I don’t. And I was never able to forget things like this.” 

The silence between them was stifling. Dorcas had to look for a book on Transfiguration in hope that Lily would give up once she refused to open up. But that wasn’t what happened. In half an hour she was speaking her heart to the redhead, which only listened to a complacent face, humming along and caressing the back of her hand as Dorcas cried her eyes out. 

“Mulciber called me a mudblood.” Lily said, after all that. She hadn’t commented on her story at all, but it was comforting. To exchange stories was better than just to cry her eyes out. “I always knew they called me that, I hear it sometimes, but they hadn’t done it to my face yet. I didn’t think it would be so hurtful – it’s just a word, I know I’m better than that, better than them. But it’s not really just a word, is it?” Her eyes searched for the other’s. 

“They are saying I come from nothing, that I’m in my deepest core worthless. It’s so full of hate. It’s not a word as much as an opinion. An opinion that a lot of people share nowadays. People that had disappeared are turning up dead and people are saying that’s because of that. Everyone, even those that don’t spout blood purity, thinks that I’m less, or that I’m more gullible or whatever...Mulciber is a friend of Severus, y’know. I don’t think he says it in front of Sev, but I know him. He knows their opinion and he says nothing.” She was crying once again. “I didn’t think it would affect me that much…but I feel despised, and threatened. And so angry.”

“Why does the world refuse to learn? Why is it so unfair?” Dorcas muttered because she couldn’t think much beyond that. Lily seemed to allow her tears to soften, and they sat in silence for quite a long time, their thoughts wandering without vocalization. 

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…” Lily spoke many minutes after, remembering lines perfectly from a discourse Dorcas knew quite well.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” Dorcas continued. “Martin Luther King. I never thought I’d hear of him in the Hogwarts Express. Where did you hear it?”

“I had this teacher back in primary school, quite a liberal thinker. She got some tapes from the library. Obviously, I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but I got curious after first-year when I understood that the wizarding world had as many issues as the muggle world. They were still there. He is quite amazing.”

“My uncle went to America when my father was twenty. He was supposed to send money home and he did. One day he sent a clipping to my father from a newspaper. There it was.” Dorcas explained as well. “You think mankind is getting better?”

“I hope so.”

* * *

When Dorcas Meadowes had told her Headmaster that she wanted to fight, she hadn’t been sure he had listened. Even as their friends fought side by side that day in Hogsmeade, she hadn’t been sure that fight would be hers. They were no longer children, yes, people that fought against death perils couldn’t really be regarded as so. Yet, she knew the adults thought otherwise: not even seventeen, they were not supposed to get involved in such matters. 

That day in Hogsmeade, she had claimed the life of Cyril Lestrange. He had not died in front of her, but she had caught a glimpse of blood that rushed from slash she had enchanted in his throat. She hadn’t known his name, only that he threatened a little girl and an older boy, which she had to defend. Thus her name was involved in a blood feud, and vengeance upon her was sworn. 

But as they sat down around the dining table in the Bones house, the fire in the hearth lighting their features, days after their graduation, she came to the conclusion that maybe she had been heard, years after that day in the Headmaster’s Tower. She knew some of those faces, some of them she had only seen in photographs, and others were completely unknown to her: Alastor Moody, Sturgis Podmore, Alice and Frank Longbottom she recognised as Aurors, Aberforth and Fabian she knew from Hogsmeade, and the one that looked just like Fabian, she imagined him to be Gideon Prewett, the politician twin. 

They were thirty-one that night. In the nights that would follow, sometimes their numbers would decrease, as some were away for duty, and in others, they would increase: in total, forty-nine had passed through the Order. And so it would continue, for many months, until their numbers began to radically decrease. 

Dorcas watched the face of her best friend throughout the whole ordeal, as Dumbledore introduced them to the organisation that they had only heard rumours of, the organisation they would dedicate their lives to in the next years, the Order of the Phoenix. It was all that the two of them had sought in the past years, an opportunity to bring change, to fight for what they believed and to defend their people so their world would have an opportunity to thrive. 

Her hands caressed the mahogany of the table as if it were a lover in the midnight - she did that in order to contain her urge to grab the bottle of firewhisky that she could see in the Bones’ counter. Lily’s eyes met hers from across the table, where the redhead rested her hand upon the boyfriend’s hand in her shoulder. The message in those green eyes was very clear, an agreement with a whole lot of determination imbued into it. 

The two witches had been through so many things all those years, they had fought over grades, they had called each other’s shit out, they had seen the other drunk and delighted, enamoured and excited, anxious and angry, sad and sick; and in all of that, a strange sense of trust had grown between them. Dorcas had never trusted anyone before Lily, but now she knew that if she was headed to the battlefield, there was nobody else that she wished to be at her side. 

Later that night, when the talk of war had died down and Ethel Bones saw fit to provide them dinner, Dorcas had approached her friend, who had just ushered her boyfriend to his friends. Lily wore Muggle clothes, loons jeans and knit tops. 

“So it begins?” She asked her friend, who was sipping a glass of sherry. 

“Yes. May fortune be ever in our favour.”

* * *

Dorcas knew that she wouldn’t survive that night.

It was very odd. When she woke up that morning, she had no idea this day would be her last on Earth. They had received a call around midday about several wizards opening fire in Upper Flagley. Such a nasty thing, when wizards were imperioused to commit atrocities. She had been hit with a blood thickening curse, but Poppy had managed to control it later that day. She hadn’t been the only one down, though, and when the call came about an attack in Mould-on-the-Would, only eleven of them were able to answer it. 

The midday skirmish had been a ploy, of course, to weaken their forces. They knew that even before they got there and the strength of the Death Eaters forces was proof of that. The Aurors would arrive soon, but this time their attackers wouldn’t leave when they came. This was a battlefield, and the presence of Voldermort himself was proof of that. 

Dorcas didn’t fear death anymore. She feared the world that Voldemort envisioned, but Death was where many awaited for her. She thought of her parents, dead before their time because they dared to try to make a living for their family. She thought of Lily as she pushed Fabian aside. She thought of the way her best friend had protected her in battle, the way she had once pushed her aside so she could fight Voldemort herself. 

Albus wasn’t here, there was nobody else that could fight the horrific figure that tortured a mother in front of her children in the middle of the town. 

Dorcas wouldn’t stand for that. 

She pushed. She called over all her power, all the knowledge she had imbued into her mind, long hours in the library with only a redheaded girl for company. She recalled their discussions in front of one of the many hearths in the houses of Order’s members, as they went over Latin and spells that they could craft. 

Dorcas was not the most powerful witch of her age or even the brightest. She had tried to become, of course, but she had lacked the social skills that were needed for it to be acknowledged. Nevertheless, that day she had a will of iron, a thirst for a dream that she knew one day would be fulfilled by those that remained behind, even if she wasn’t there to see it. 

Thus, she dodged and attacked until she could no more. Until the curse still in her blood summoned weakness and the Dark Lord’s killing curse hit her. 

And when her soul left her body, it turned into a breeze to say goodbye to those that stayed behind, and then it left the world in peace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know that MLK’s full speech never appeared in writing until the year of 1983. You will have to allow this failure for the sake of the words that represent a point of view that these characters share with me in my mind. Other than that, I know that comparing racism to a fictional prejudice can be far out of my right to do, and I am not certain I will keep this. I wanted to talk about this topic, but I am not the most sensible person to tell it, as someone that isn’t African descent.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had this idea to do a work on the First Wizarding War, or more than one. I will attempt to keep to only possible canonical scenarios, promise! The following weeks, I will try to write different views from several characters on Lily Evans Potter, through the years of war. Tell me what you think of it, if you guys like I've this idea to do something on the Black Sisters, on Tom Riddle and on Albus Dumbledore


End file.
